A Few Theories Of Electibility

August 15, 2010|By Colin McEnroe, To Wit

Here is my Theory of Ned. I actually stole it from a woman named Carlina, but what's she going to do? Ned Lamont went to Phillips Exeter where they use the Harkness Method, in which young men are strapped into chairs with their eyelids taped open and programmed to believe that women named Mitzi in lime green espadrilles are erotic.

No, that is not the Harkness Method. At Exeter, classes of 12 sit at round tables and have wide-ranging discussions, considering all facets of a question, occasionally pausing to say, "Lovejoy, you old dog. I didn't know you'd read Suetonius."

This is an excellent way to learn, but a poor way to campaign. Campaigns are less about a respectful interest in the other person's ideas and more about suggesting the other person may once have stabbed a veterinary technician to death with an infected guitar pick in Abilene, Texas.

Harkness is all about good fellows. Campaigns are more about "Goodfellas." (An aside: my friend the Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam went to Exeter during the Lamont era, and Alex is not a reasonable person or the least bit interested in other people's views. So the Harkness thing doesn't always take.)

At some level, Ned may never have grasped the idea that, in a campaign, you have to beat down the other person and his qualifications, badda-bing, badda-bing, with a lead pipe. He may have imagined that we would just bat things around for a while until it was obvious to everyone who was the better chap. Which is why he has spent roughly $26 million of his own money losing to Joe Lieberman and Dan Malloy in the last two cycles.

Here is my Second, Also Stolen, Theory of Ned. It is a disadvantage to be named Ned. There has never been a Pope Ned or a President Ned Polk.

Here is my Theory of Robocalls. Politicians assume that you are kind of lonely, and that it would perk up your life if occasionally the phone rang and you picked it up and heard the recorded voice of Mitt Romney talking about Tom Foley. As opposed making you erupt into psychotic rage and smash all the dishes in your house and vow never to vote again.

Here is my Theory of the Comptroller. Nobody knows what the comptroller is or even how to say it. It's like Ben Stiller trying to say "Favre." This year, because of public financing, we had access to lots of advertising about the incredibly dangerous people running for this inscrutable post. Waterbury Mayor Michael Jarjura became the victim of two rounds of negative ads, his opponent's and his own.

Kevin Lembo's ads blamed Jarjura for the hiring of John Rowland, post-prison, to a lucrative job so close to his area of malfeasance that it was like hiring John Dillinger as a Wells Fargo driver. Jarjura's mail pieces blamed Lembo for everything else wrong with the world, including at least one dance craze. Jarjura lost by a 71 to 29 margin. Do you know hard it is to do that? Chemical Ali could get 32 percent of the vote in most statewide races, just on the off-chance that he was the boxer's science nerd brother.

Here is My Theory of the Unaffiliateds. There are more than 800,000 unaffiliated voters — far more than are registered with either party. During the primaries, they sit below the surface like a huge, silent, mysterious, plankton-sucking leviathan. Now, however, they must be propitiated, and the things that helped you win the primary — for instance, a crypto-truckling attitude to party ideology — are the things that will hurt you with Independent Dick, the mighty unaffiliated whale.

One person who gets this is Republican Attorney General nominee Martha Dean. On Tuesday night, I began a radio interview with her by saying her campaign was notable for her strong position on guns. Dean said she would have to disagree with me. "Wha'?, " I rejoined keenly.

Dean explained she had a strong position on the Constitution. She can't help it that the Constitution is crazy about guns. If the Constitution (my analogy) were crazy about decoupage or inhalants, she would fight for our right to have them.

I believe I answered, "Uhhhh. OK."

If I were trained in the Harkness Method, I could have taken the conversation in the direction of Aristotle. Or at least the Dirty Harry movies.

Colin McEnroe appears from 1 to 2 p.m. weekdays on WNPR-FM (90.5) and blogs at http://blogs.courant.com/to_wit. He can be reached at Colin@wnpr.org.